Sprint

Sprint is the nation's third-largest wireless carrier, albeit by a small margin over T-Mobile at this point. One of the cornerstones of Sprint's business model is being one of the few carrier options that offers "truly unlimited" data, though 2013 saw Sprint cut down many of its plans to tiered and capped data in order to offer lower prices. As other carriers began to move to shared data plans among devices on the same account, Sprint has stuck with the standard model of each device having its own data plan, along with the ability to group into a traditional family plan or new referral-based "Framily" plan.

In a deal that eventually closed in mid-2013, Japanese carrier SoftBank purchased just over 72 percent of Sprint for a total of $21.6 billion in an effort to enter the U.S. wireless market and turn Sprint back around into a profitable and growing carrier. In conjunction with the buyout, Sprint also finalized its purchase of Clearwire, which was a required action as part of the SoftBank investment.

Sprint was very late to the party in rolling out LTE to the country, and is still in the midst of keeping the network stable and fast through its "Network Vision" tower upgrade plan. Part of this is due to the time, money and tower space that was until recently dedicated to its legacy WiMax and Nextel iDEN push-to-talk networks, the latter of which was finally shut down in 2013. Sprint has worked as quickly as possible to repurpose its spectrum holdings — which are almost all in the higher and less desirable bands — to provide faster data services. It primarily operates on the 800, 1900 and 2500MHz bands, even combining the three to provide higher throughput with its "Spark" LTE service on certain devices.

Even with the big money investment from SoftBank and the constantly-improving network situation on its hands, Sprint is still struggling to gain customers quarter-over-quarter. At the current pace of customer loss and acquisition, Sprint could be overtaken by T-Mobile as the third-place carrier in the U.S. in number of subscribers in just a couple of short years. That is, if SoftBank doesn't pull together the money to buy out T-Mobile itself.

All Sprint

According to our inbox and folks in our HTC One Max forums, Sprint today has started pushing out its Android 4.4.2 KitKat update for the HTC One Max. The changelog for software version 2.09.651.1 — which weighs in at 344MB — notes the new OS, security enhancements and cloud printing capabilities...

1.p.m ET: retail launch on Verizon, online launch on AT&T, Sprint; available in the U.K. from 4 p.m. GMT
The all-new HTC One (M8) has been officially announced, and we're now able to bring you details of retail and online availability for the device in the U.S., Canada, and U.K. As...

Alongside its Galaxy S5 pre-order news today, Sprint has revealed that it'll stock Samsung's new Tizen-powered wearables from the same date, April 11. Sprint's pricing for all three devices closely match what we've seen from other carriers — the Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit are $199.99, while the...

Service and repair times not expected to change dramatically
It's no secret that Sprint has been coming up short in terms of earnings for several quarters now, and following its buyout by SoftBank the carrier is starting to make some cuts to help that bottom line. The nation's third-place...

Plans currently limited to just four approved Sprint devices, and it's a terrible deal
Sprint is working to expand its plan options for those looking to save a little money by launching own-branded prepaid offerings. After previously pushing prepaid customers to its lower brands Boost and Virgin...

What isn't clear right now is why Sprint needs to buy its closest competitor to start the war
It's not much of a secret that Sprint intends to make a bid for smaller rival T-Mobile, but SoftBank CEO and Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son is making big claims about what the combined companies would do...

Sprint Note 2, GS3 and GS4 Mini among planned KitKat updates
Sprint has confirmed that it's rolling out Android 4.4 KitKat firmware for the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, with both updates having gone live in the past month. Sprint's Galaxy S4 started receiving KitKat from Feb. 13, and was...

A lot of our attention is pointed towards Europe for Mobile World Congress, but domestically Sprint has announced HD Voice and Spark support in Salt Lake City and Jacksonville, Florida. Sprint's LTE is now covering 382 markets, while the 60 Mbps available through Spark is available in 16 cities...

Confirming news we broke in January, Sprint this morning announced that it's bringing free Wifi calling to the Samsung Galaxy Mega and Galaxy S4 Mini. An over-the-air update is required before you'll be able to use the free Wifi calling, and Sprint says that'll be pushed out over the next few...

Right on cue, Sprint's Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is starting to receive its update to Android 4.4 KitKat, with a 503MB over-the-air update now going out to some devices. The update brings the Sprint Note 3 up to Android 4.4.2 KitKat and introduces some minor visual tweaks, such as white status bar...

Details tip versions compatible with Sprint and AT&T
We know the HTC Desire 8 is headed to China, super-super camera and all. But it looks like it could be headed stateside, too.
The folks that get this sort of information and early software builds at LlabToofer have uncovered some details...

Update to Android 4.4 also enables support for Sprint MVNO Zact Mobile
Not a lot of details here, but this tip says the one detail everyone with a Sprint Galaxy S4 has been waiting for — a date for the KitKat OTA.
Per this internal document, the update should be available starting February 13...

Network improvements will also include HD Voice in the coming weeks
Sprint announced today that its new network, dubbed Sprint Spark, is available in another two U.S. cities. The new network, which takes advantage of three different blocks of spectrum to increase speeds, offers theoretical...

Full-year losses of $1.9 billion on $28.6 billion in revenues
A handful of months after it was purchased by SoftBank, Sprint has reported another losing quarter and year on the books. The third-place carrier posted a Q4 2013 loss of $576 million, although that improved 22 percent year-over-year...

Save $120 over the default plan in your first 6 months
Boost Mobile is well-known for offering mobile phone service on the cheap, and starting today you can get it even cheaper if you buy a new LTE device. From now until March 31st, if you head to Boost Mobile and purchase one of their new LTE...

Sprint's best android phones now can use direct-connect features
Sprint knows that a lot of people are big users of their direct-connect service. They have built it out as a very well-done app for Android, and today they have added a few new phones to the list of devices that can use it. Your...

Customers can initiate pull request today soon
Updated update: Things are good. Go download your update. Someone forgot to factor the time Google needs to get the file itself on the servers, and things backed up 12 hours.
Update: Looks like someone jumped the gun, as the Sprint admin who posted...

It looks like the red Nexus 5 may hit Google Play on Feb. 4, according to this week's internal Sprint Playbook.
The headline pretty much says it all — "2/4/14: Google Nexus 5 in red available in Google play stores." Still nothing official, of course, and things have changed before. But we did...

A quick heads up for folks out in Kansas City, that from today Sprint is launching its Spark LTE service in your neighborhood. With theoretical data speeds of up to 60Mbps on supported devices, Sprint promises that customers across its hometown will see a "noticeable difference" in their data...

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